Teenager eating together
Students of the Lira integrated fish farm in Uganda, a South-South Cooperation Facility for Agriculture and Food Security, eat their lunch.
Photo:©FAO/Isaac Kasamani

Solidarity, Equity and Partnership: Unlocking South-South Cooperation to Achieve the SDGs

The Republic of Congo tapping into the wealth of expertise and innovations available in Brazil on family farming and school feeding programmes; Cuba's support in the fight against Ebola in West Africa; UNESCO's facilitating of exchanges between Fiji, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu to build capacities of teachers; these are just a few examples of South-South cooperation.

South-South cooperation is a manifestation of solidarity among peoples and countries of the South that contributes to their national well-being, their national and collective self-reliance and the attainment of internationally agreed development goals, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Boosting this collaborative spirit, the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), promotes and facilitates South-South and triangular cooperation for development on a global and United Nations system-wide basis.

12 September 2023

Solidarity, Equity and Partnership: Unlocking South-South Cooperation to Achieve the SDGs

The 2023 high-level commemoration of the UN Day for South-South Cooperation will fall one week prior to the SDG Summit, and will be an opportunity to raise awareness and accelerate practical actions as we arrive at this halfway point to 2030.

It will be an opportunity to highlight needs emerging from various regions as well as to present transformational initiatives toward achieving the most acute priorities of the 2023 Agenda by Member States, the UN System, private sector, and civil society.

 

For more information visit the official UNOSSC website Register
Girls at the school kitchen eating and smiling up to a camera

But... What does South-South Cooperation mean exactly?

South-South cooperation is done through a broad framework of collaboration among countries of the South in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains. Involving two or more developing countries, it can take place on a bilateral, regional, intraregional or interregional basis. Through South-South collaboration, developing countries share knowledge, skills, expertise and resources to meet their development goals through concerted efforts.

Another modality of South-South cooperation is Triangular cooperation, a collaboration in which traditional donor countries and multilateral organizations facilitate South-South initiatives through the provision of funding, training, management and technological systems, as well as other forms of support.

The objectives of South-South Cooperation are to:

  • foster and strengthen the self-reliance of developing countries by enhancing their creative capacity to find solutions and technological capacities to their development problems and formulate the requisite strategies to address them;
  • promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among developing countries through the exchange of experiences leading to a greater awareness of common problems and wider access to available knowledge;
  • recognize and respond to the problems and requirements of the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, small island developing States and the countries most seriously affected by, for example, natural disasters and other crises, and enable them to achieve a greater degree of participation in international economic activities.

Did you know?

  • The countries of the South have contributed to more than half of the world’s growth in recent years.
  • Intra-south trade is higher than ever, accounting for more than a quarter of all world trade.
  • The outflows of foreign direct investment from the South represent a third of the global flows.

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The United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) was created in 1974 to promote, coordinate and support South-South and triangular cooperation globally and within the United Nations system. The Office works to support countries’ efforts to manage, design and implement South-South cooperation policies and initiatives through the identification, sharing and transfer of successful Southern-generated development solutions.

South-South galaxy logo

The “South-South Galaxy” is a global knowledge-sharing and partnership platform launched in 2019. The project aims to give systematic and effective support to countries of the South, so they can connect, learn and collaborate with potential partners in the wider digital world.

 

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International days and weeks are occasions to educate the public on issues of concern, to mobilize political will and resources to address global problems, and to celebrate and reinforce achievements of humanity. The existence of international days predates the establishment of the United Nations, but the UN has embraced them as a powerful advocacy tool. We also mark other UN observances.